From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

The Peerage of France was a distinction within the French nobility which appeared in the Middle Ages. It was abolished in 1789 during the French Revolution, but it reappeared in 1814 at the time of the Bourbon Restoration which followed the fall of the First French Empire. On 10 October 1831, by a 324 against 26 vote of the Chamber of Deputies, hereditary peerage was abolished, but peerage for the life of the holder continued to exist until it was definitively abolished in 1848.